Would you invite a friend to your house for dinner? Or, would you just eat and not share a bite?
These are the core of a Twitter thread that went viral last May. Reddit user told of how they went to Sweden with a friend and that while playing in his bedroom, his mom shouted that dinner was ready. This is what you should see. He said to me to WAIT in their room while they ate.”
Some Twitter users claimed that this type of non-hospitality is common in Sweden and Northern Europe. “As a Swede I can confirm this,” tweeted @CarlWilliamKul. “It would be strange to feed another child if they [were] just over to have fun.”
The anecdote made a pot of stew. The so-called Global South aEUR was a term that refers to countries in the Southern Hemisphere. There was a lot criticised about the Swedes. Many people said that they would never dream of being this stingy with their culture. The online conversation has gone beyond feeding children at playdates.
“In Saudi Arabia we had to create a video to stop people inviting and insisting that the census workers eat,” tweeted @AmjaDtranslate.
In Saudi Arabia we had to made a video to stop people from inviting and insisting on the census workers to eatdY~, pic.twitter.com/Saq72fxvnk
Tweeted @thefatcatm: “My Moroccan parents tell me that if guests arrive and there isn’t anything prepared, they should give them tea [and] biscuits.”
“In Indonesia, if guests are coming to visit, we ensure they eat and eat. @capybaraMJ tweeted, “Nobody is allowed to starve.”
We spoke with anthropologists and food scientists to understand differences in food culture and hospitality across the globe.
First, a Swedish host would not invite guests to their dinner party if it was dinnertime.
It happens, according to Richard TellstrAPm (a Stockholm University food historian and author of a book on Swedish food culture in 19th and 20th century). This was the norm when he was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. He would return to his home to eat if he was at a friend’s house. He could also stay in one room and wait while his friend finished their meal. They would then continue to play.
He said it wasn’t that bad. It was interesting to wait for a EUR. You could see the items in the room and read a magazine. It took only 7 to 9 minutes, depending on how long it took to get there.
He says that it was not a universal rule. For example, rural families were more likely than urban ones to host guests. Because people lived further apart, it was more difficult for them to get home and eat.
TellstrAPm says that the “no dinner for me” policy is slowly disappearing. “Food has been a symbol of society since the 1990s. Open kitchens are common. We have open kitchens. People love to eat there and show off their cooking.
Mohini Mehta is a food scholar, culinary anthropologist and Ph.D student at Uppsala University, Sweden. After moving to Sweden from India, she recalls the first thing her international colleagues taught her: A host might leave a guest to have dinner by themselves in another room.
She claims that nothing like this has ever happened to her in Sweden. However, the anecdote “shocked” her to the core. It was both absurd and unbelievable to me. “How can anyone do that?”
Mehta says she struggled to adjust to the new life in Sweden after moving during the 2020 pandemic. Mehta was used to hosting dinner parties in India almost every week and cooking dinner for her friends every day. She began inviting friends and colleagues to dinner after Sweden lifted lockdown restrictions.
She discovered that sharing a meal is an effective way to make friends in certain cultures like hers. But this is not always true for Swedes.
TellstrAPm explains that some Swedes believe that feeding guests creates an obligation. He says that people do not want to place a burden on others or feel obligated to them in a society that values independence and equality.
The online debate raises the question: Why is it that people in certain countries are more likely to share meals?
Krishnendu Ray, a New York University food studies professor who was born in India, believes there is a sense in all cultures of hospitality, but that certain ethnic groups are more morally driven to help others.
It could be the past. He says that in communities with a long history poverty, there is a “memory about hunger [creating] pressure for you to be hospitable towards your kind of people”.
For example, 3 million people died of starvation and malnutrition during the 1943 Bengal Famine. Ray says that Bengalis still use this tragedy to remind themselves to share food with neighbors.
He says that his grandmother, who could have been stingy, wouldn’t turn away a poor person without feeding him. “She explicitly linked her hospitality to the memory and the famine.”
Ray points out another example of Chinese culture. Around 30 million people starved to death during the Great Chinese Famine, 1959-61.
He says that some scholars believe that the culture’s competitive hospitality and gestures aEUR of abundance (over-ordering at restaurants, serving too many dishes at banquets, insisting that people take more of their favorite pieces) are linked to memories of deprivation.
Societies often think of poverty, scarcity, and abstinence as compensation for their generosity, gift-giving, and hospitality.
Ray is enjoying the #SwedenGate online debate, which some Twitter users have dubbed “SwedenGate” by Ray.
He says, “People are having fun piling onto the Swedes since the Swedes almost have everything right.”
Jacky Habib, a freelance journalist, is based in Nairobi. She writes about social justice, women’s rights and global development. Follow her @jackyhabib to see more of her work at www.jackyhabib.com
